Stasia's Place Of Grace

Saturday, March 20, 2004

 

Happy Vernal Equinox!

Welcome, Spring! Here in Wisconsin, we hit a balmy 56 degrees or so... followed closely by violent winds, and snow this evening. Mother Nature is cleaning house for sure.

To get my mind off the awful whistling outside - I mean, the wonderful fresh breath of spring air (ahem!) - I worked on my prayer strands.

What got me interested in prayer beads? Eleanor Wiley's fantastic book, "A String And A Prayer"!

Note: If you want to make some prayer beads pertaining to your own spiritual beliefs, the MysticRosary Yahoo Group is a great place to get started. If you're a Catholic and want to make a rosary, The Rosary Shop has kits and supplies and all you'll need to make a very personal one. I get a lot of my beads from Fire Mountain Gems and Shipwreck Beads - share an order with some friends to save on shipping.

I'd been wanting to make an "Earth Rosary" for some time, and what better day than today?

Here are my meditation/affirmation/prayer/what-you-will strands:

From left to right, we have:

The Sleep Strand - a strand to keep at my bedside so I can meditate myself to sleep more easily, and soothe away "scary dream residue" (a SARK quote) if I awaken during the night. The words for these beads are:

"Night has fallen,
Day is done,
Worries have gone with the sun.
Keep us safe
Throughout the night,
Wake us with the morning light."

Yes, I know it's rather simple-minded, but that's the point in the middle of the night! Especially if the night has awful, whistling winds...

The second strand is a rosary which I've had forever, and which got me through a lot of pain when I couldn't stand for three months before my back surgery. I'm not a Catholic, though, and I had a personal problem with a "dead guy on a tree" (absolutely NO disrespect intended to those of Christian faith, especially my well-loved Christian friends!) hanging from my prayer beads. I felt like a hypocrite using them. So today I re-made them, with a heart charm and a pretty divider where the Mary segment was. I think it looks rather Victorian and that it came out well.

Third we have my breathing beads which are made of Raku-fired clay. They have a charm for Chi (Energy) at the base. The moon bead is on top just because the maker sent it along for free with my order. These beads are to help me count my breaths, especially if I'm anxious or tense or liable to overreact to a situation. They fit in my wallet and are comforting to hold.

Finally, on the right we have the Earth Rosary strand. I used Jasper stones, and divided them by color to represent the transitions from one season to the next. There are 13 beads for each of four seasons - one for each week of that season - and four larger, faceted beads to represent the two solstices and two equinoxes that take place as we pass through the year.

I made it circular with no dangly-fobs or anything hanging off of it to indicate the never-ending cycle/spiral of the seasons. With this strand, each bead represents a full, deep breath during which I meditate on aspects of the particular season, and those things for which I'm grateful that take place at that time of year.

On that strand, we have fall on the bottom left, summer on the bottom right, spring on the top right, and winter on the top left. I got three inexpensive strands of Jasper stones in order to have enough gradiation in color to choose from - the changes are very subtle, though you can't tell from the photo. I especially like the red-white, late-autumn beads (representing early snows), and the white-green, early spring beads (representing bulbs peeking up through the snowdrifts).

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I meant to decorate eggs using the Ukranian pysanki method today but first I had to make an egg-rest out of a piece of wood and some nails, and between that and the beads and the wind - did I mention the wind? - I got a little too worn out. So watch for the eggs next week, if they turn out!

Back to knitting the Noro Silk Garden diagonal vest!

May you have a blessed spring!

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